Dong Hee x Seong Joon
by C.C. Baxter
Summary: From the K-Drama Father, I'll Take Care of You. Just snippets of what I imagine they would be feeling during the maaaany episodes spent with the two of them obviously in love but not daring to admit it. Also written because I could not find any Dong Hee/Seong Joon fanfic out there and needed something to fill that cutesy heart-shaped void in me 3


Dong Hee /

She knew that she had always had an overactive imagination, ever since she was a child. As she explained to Seong Joon that unforgettable night in the library, she was, as a child, always left alone, without entertainment from playing with other children or with her family members. Since then, she learnt that dreaming filled up the void in her life that, for other children, was filled up by company. As a child she dreamt of pirate ships that sailed on the deep blue seas at night, so deep that it was the same colour as the night sky, and that you couldn't tell the difference between the sea and the sky except by sweeping your hand upwards to catch the twinkling stars. Then as a teenager she dreamt of love. She read all the classics that she could lay her hands in her small neighbourhood library - she wept at Romeo and Juliet, rejoiced at Pride and Prejudice and gasped with horror at Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Not only the classics she adored, but with her wide and undiscerning eye she also lapped up the serial Korean romance mangas and the bubbly chick-lit of both Korean and foreign authors. She was hooked, and unknowingly, quixotically, she started to dream of her own Great Romance.

Then real life came in the form of her future crashing down in front of her through no fault of her own, as her brother took away their family's little stash of cash to fuel his cheating and embezzling hobbies all the way to Taiwan. There was no time for dreaming then. She neither had the time nor the energy to fuel her escapist activities of dreaming, reading and writing when such pressing issues of finding a place to stay and taking care of her grandmother was at hand.

Now she was at the rooftop, she and her granny, initially much to her granny's chagrin (which was now morphing into something more like reluctant enjoyment, though the proud old woman would never admit it). A safe place to stay and a place to work brought stability which made her think again - about writing, her hopes for being a writer and another thing which she always tried not to think about - the man living downstairs.

She had him saved in her phone as "brother-in-law cum Department Manager", a jarring reminder to herself not to forget who he was in relation to her. In reality, that extra reminder was quite unecessary as everywhere she went the reminder was there - from the uneasy and apologetic way her sister addressed him at home, to basically every interaction at the office that involved him, whether with coworkers, herself, or that plastic surgery girlfriend of his, Mi Ju. She knew he was inaccessible to her; that though they now shared a home and had moments together, his world was so much bigger than that - he had his work, his time abroad, his own love life. Every one at work respected and knew him - he was almost a public figure compared to her small little dingy anonymity.

But, as usual, her weakness caught her by the ankles again, and her rebellious heart and imagination ran ahead of her. She imagined that he came up to the rooftops for her as much as for Bong Chi, and she could swear that he snuck glances at her during family dinners when others weren't looking. She liked the way that although they mostly just exchanged pleasantries in careful jondae they both knew a lot more was brewing underneath the surface. After years of being pushed around (whether by her classmates at school, bossy landlords, or people at work), she had developed her own form of silent resistance and escape mechanism through writing; in other words, she was not someone who would freely express her own feelings, especially those that she thought were inappropriate or would provoke others. Her words and facial expressions were those carefully chosen and filtered, spoken to cause the least ruffling of feathers amongst the listeners. But, for some reason, when she was around him, the carefully constructed dam over her many years of abuse that held in her raw and unchecked emotions would convulse and crack uncontrollably when she was with him. Like the time when the first snow fell, and he was brushing the snowflakes off her hair.

* * *

Seong Joon /

He fell for her at first sight, in Taiwan. Strolling around and seeing another tourist, like him, traveling alone made him feel some sympathy towards that petite young lady. At the end of their adventures in Taiwan, as he stood leaning against the railing of waterfront overlooking the river, lost in thought. He knew he could not bring himself to cause this petite girl any more trouble for being so unfortunate as to have such a brother. He would not look for her again.

He indulged one last final mental picture of her waving and smiling all the way back to her tour bus. At that moment she symbolised to him innocence and a simpler way of life. Then he gave an inward smile, made a small mental effort to push these Taiwan memories into the background storeroom of his mind and tore her tissue paper number into the wind. So to think of his surprise when he met her on his own rooftop, of all places, petting his dog like it was hers.

It was impossible to concentrate at his desk at home if he knew that she was just upstairs. He often imagined what she would be doing- getting up to pace the floorboards in frustration when writing? Or lying on the flat low table outside looking at the night sky (oh how he wished he was lying there next to her). Would she be thinking of him being downstairs too? He would often find his mind drifting off to look for barely passable excuses to come up to the rooftop to visit her before catching himself and returning back to work.

He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. As he got to know her more, he felt more and more sure of what the others kept getting wrong about her- despite appearances, she was a bundle of strength and determination. In her quiet, eyes-turned-downward way (although sometime ago she had dropped that attitude with him and she was comfortable being straight with him, to his delight), she had nerves of steel and big dream to go with it. He felt it was his responsibility to take that talent and show it to the world, to shake her scripts in front of everyone, telling them to hear her voice. In encouraging and facilitating her writing ambitions, he somehow had the feeling that he was doing, for the first time, something he truly believed in, instead of living the farcical life he was supposed to lead with his role in his family and at work. And also, for the first time in his life, after coming back from work and slowly ascending the stairs of this house in which she now belonged in, he felt like he was coming home.


End file.
